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The nightmare, for Chico Forti, began in February 1998. The thirty-nine-year-old from Trentino was a former windsurfing champion who, after leaving the activity, had assumed the role of television producer. He specialized in extreme sports documentaries and moved to Florida permanently. On February 16, twenty-two years ago, the body of Dale Pike, who was shot twice in the back of the head, was found on a beach in Kay Biscayne.
Investigators focus on Chico Forti for two reasons: in those months the Trentino businessman was negotiating with the victim’s father to buy a hotel and a telephone card is found near the body, which seems to have been used to make some calls to the Trentino’s phone number. However, the investigations – during the years of judicial struggle in search of the truth, certainly not by the US authorities – have allowed over the years to understand how it was impossible for the victim to make the calls to Forti (in the At the time Dale Pike’s exit attempts had been recorded he was in the Miami airport customs area and that type of card could only be purchased outside the airport area). Ceasing to assume more than anything a clear attempt to provide the police with a red herring that led to Chico Forti. Quite clumsy, but not for the American authorities. Those who have always gone directly to attribute the murder to Forti, even when in the months after his arrest the accusation of fraud falls against him. The main possible motive was considered, and Florida police were certain that Pike had been killed after he and his father discovered an attempted fraud by Trentino to their detriment.
None of this, however, Forti is immediately listed as the prime suspect. Even the murder weapon is not a valid argument to accuse him: a .22 caliber compatible with the one used to kill Pike was bought by an acquaintance of Forti, the German Thomas Knott. After some initially encouraging developments – Forti was arrested a few days after the murder, in 1998 and released on bail, with the case that in the summer of 1999 seems destined for dismissal after the fraud allegations disappeared – hell. In September 1999, the Miami prosecutor’s office investigated Forti for the murder and in October Trentino was arrested a second time after that in February 1998. He risks the death penalty, but his attorneys are convinced they can obtain easy acquittal. This will not also be the case because, as will be discovered later, the defense that Chico Forti can count on is not the best: one can speak openly of unfaithful patronage. On June 14, 2000, the Trentino man was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. In July a first instance was dismissed in which Forti’s lawyers requested the annulment of the first degree trial and over the years the hope of being able to have a new trial has always failed.
Twenty years. Twenty years and a few months spent a long time in a five-square-meter cell, where the heat and humidity make the walls sweat, caught between terrible certainties and shortcomings. The first, of the futility of proclaiming himself innocent and knowing that the absence of evidence weighs in his favor. The second, those of his loved ones: his wife Heather and their children Savannah Sky, Jenna Bleu and Francesco Luce. When he was sentenced they were six, four and two years old respectively. He has not seen them grow.
Parallel to Chico Forti’s fight in jail, that of family and friends begins, with his uncle Gianni at the head. In December 2000 at the Studio Uno nightclub in Vaneze of Chico, close friend Billy Valduga, two hundred listen to the live audio from the Miami penitentiary. Throughout the years, everyone, first in Trentino and then in Italy, will be able to know its history thanks to the commitment born then and never latent. Also feeding institutional and diplomatic commitment. Also in this twenty-year-old case: the Forti case came to Parliament in the summer of 2000 when the then Diessino deputy Luigi Olivieri presented a question addressed to Prime Minister Giuliano Amato and Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini. Since then all governments have tried, some more or less, others with more, others with less vehemence and conviction, to bring Chico home. In vain, until yesterday.
AUNT WILMA
“Since yesterday afternoon our phone has not stopped ringing, it is a delusion.” So speaking Wilma, Chico Forti’s wife. «Chico knows everything and is very happy. We don’t know anything about the timing of his repatriation, but that’s okay It couldn’t have been a better Christmas.
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